e who has nice neighbours," cried my aunt
Celine in a voice which seemed loud because she was so timid, and seemed
forced because she had been planning the little speech for so long;
darting, as she spoke, what she called a 'significant glance' at Swann.
And my aunt Flora, who realised that this veiled utterance was Celine's
way of thanking Swann intelligibly for the Asti, looked at him with a
blend of congratulation and irony, either just, because she wished to
underline her sister's little epigram, or because she envied Swann
his having inspired it, or merely because she imagined that he was
embarrassed, and could not help having a little fun at his expense.

"I think it would be worth while," Flora went on, "to have this old
gentleman to dinner. When you get him upon Maubant or Mme. Materna he
will talk for hours on end."

"That must be delightful," sighed my grandfather, in whose mind nature
had unfortunately forgotten to include any capacity whatsoever for
becoming passionately interested in the co-operative movement among the
ladies of Sweden or in the methods employed by Maubant to get up his
parts, just as it had forgotten to endow my grandmother's two sisters
with a grain of that precious salt which one has oneself to 'add to
taste' in order to extract any savour from a narrative of the private
life of Mole or of the Comte de Paris.

"I say!" exclaimed Swann to my grandfather, "what I was going to tell
you has more to do than you might think with what you were asking me
just now, for in some respects there has been very little change. I came
across a passage in Saint-Simon this morning which would have amused
you. It is in the volume which covers his mission to Spain; not one
of the best, little more in fact than a journal, but at least it is a
journal wonderfully well written, which fairly distinguishes it from
the devastating journalism that we feel bound to read in these days,
morning, noon and night."

"I do not agree with you: there are some days when I find reading the
papers very pleasant indeed!" my aunt Flora broke in, to show Swann that
she had read the note about his Corot in the _Figaro_.

"Yes," aunt Celine went one better. "When they write about things or
people in whom we are interested."

"I don't deny it," answered Swann in some bewilderment. "The fault I
find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in
some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or fo